Recently, for a door of a vehicle, an electrically operated door lock device and wireless remote controlled door lock device and so on have been used to improve convenience of the door opening/closing operation. In these devices, a connector, which supplies power between a module and a unit of the vehicle without contacting, is known (for example, see the document disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-255342, p3–5, FIG. 4).
According to the disclosed art, the known art refers to a power supply in trunk lid, wherein an inverter device is provided for generating alternate current using a battery as a power source and a primary coil is connected to its output side. A trunk lid lamp placed adjacent to the primary coil includes a tail lamp and a secondary coil for supplying power to the lamp. Thus, when the trunk lid is under closed position, the secondary coil faces to the primary coil and a core with narrow gap to make electrical contact by basis of electromagnetic induction.
For the above electric power supply system using electromagnetic induction, a door opening/closing system and so on are applied as electrical components for the vehicle. The disclosure for the known art has been adopted only for application of power supply method using electromagnetic induction to simplify for wiring wire harness and to improve productivity in attachment. Namely, the known art has been only a system for supplying electric power instead of disclosing a concrete example for signal transmission.
On the other hand, it is common that electric power or signal is supplied or transmitted to various electric parts (e.g. antenna) provided in an outside handle device by wiring a wire harness. One of the known art for wiring the wire harness is described as follows.
First, an antenna 51 and one end of a wire harness 52 (shown in FIG. 5) are connected under disassembled condition. Next, the antenna 51 is fixed to inside of the outside handle 50, and the other end of the wire harness 52 is inserted through a small aperture 50a provided in the vehicle front side of the outside handle 50 (upper direction of FIG. 5).
Then, a terminal 52a connected to the other end of the wire harness 52 is disposed into a connector 53. The connector 53 is inserted through an aperture 60a provided in a door panel 70 and a handle frame 60, and an outside handle 50 is attached to the handle frame 60.
Meanwhile, a wire harness 72 connected with door lock electric inner parts is extended near the handle frame 60. The wire harness 72 is to be electrically connected to the wire harness 52. At this time, a protector 90 or a sub-wire harness formed by rubber tube is necessary to protect the wire harness 72 to prevent an undesirable contact with a moving door glass 80. Then, a worker in the assembly plant connects each connector 53, 73 together using hand. Finally, the connected connectors 53, 73 are manually engaged with a detent means (not shown) provided in the handle frame 60.
When a smart-key system on a vehicle door or an electrical latch cancellation system and so on are equipped, a built-in transmitter has to be housed inside of the outside handle or the handle frame which supports the outside handle. FIG. 6 shows the relationship between a door lock ECU provided in the vehicle body side and various electrical (electronic) components provided in the outside handle device. Both FIGS. 5 and 6 show that a number of wire connections is necessary fqr both parts (the vehicle and the outside handle). Accordingly, thickening of wire harness wired from the outside handle 50, or a complicated wiring operation of the wire harness is unavoidable in inside of the door.
Additionally, in the known art, wiring wire harness, workability for removing the wire harness 52 from the outside handle 50 is not considered. Further, assembling operation can not be carried out smoothly since the worker or operator has to insert the connector 53 through aperture 60a manually. In addition, the connector inserting operation and the wiring/engaging operation of the wire harness 52, 72 had to be carried out by error and trial since there is a region which can not be seen directly in some portions. In addition, since positioning relationship between the outside handle 50 and the door lock is different depending on the types of vehicle, it has been required to design wire harnesses 52, 72 for every vehicle type, and accordingly, different parts are required for every vehicle type.